Member Spotlight – Deanna Seagrave-Daly

June 2017 Member Spotlight

Exactly how many job titles can you claim? For Deanna Segrave-Daly, RD, LDN of Havertown, PA her official claim to fame is as a Partner in Teaspoon Communications, the business she has co-owned with Serena Ball, MS, RD for the past eight years. What that actually means is that Deanna is a blogger, spokesperson, photographer, videographer, recipe developer, coordinator of an online blogging community as co-owner of The Recipe ReDux and last, but not least special events planner as co-owner of Blog Brulee.

When we look back at the choices we’ve made, seemingly unrelated decisions can be the greatest foundation for our future endeavors. While Deanna initially took a nutrition course to help her improve her own health habits as a marketing major at Penn State, her love of food and cooking lead her to a perfect dual major, “Ending up with two B.S. degrees (Marketing and Nutrition) may have seemed like dumb luck, but I rely heavily on both degrees with what I do to this day. I always kid that I somehow combined my dad’s family background (agriculture) with my mom’s family (health professionals) as one of my first jobs was a dietitian working for dairy farmers. I continue to work with a lot of commodity groups who represent all types of farming.”

Originally from Radnor, PA, Deanna completed her undergraduate degrees through Penn State and finished her dietetic internship at Simmons College in Boston. As one of three PAND Blog coordinators, Deanna was instrumental in getting the EatrightPA Blogging program off to a great start earlier this year. (Check it out at https://eatrightpa.org/for-the-public/blog/). Deanna has found significant value in being a member of AND and volunteering at both the state and national level. “The main benefit to me of being a member of the Academy is finding your tribe of like-minded professionals both in career path and philosophies – the DPGs are where I really found my peeps. And I’m enjoying becoming more involved in PAND again – it’s always good to be geographically close to other dietitians you share the same passions with!”

As a seasoned dietitian in a non-traditional career path, Deanna keeps her eye on ways to help improve the outlook for both her colleagues and for dietitians in training. Deanna explained, “It’s important to me to share my experiences and all the mistakes I’ve made along the way to help others either going thru the same thing or to avoid those missteps all together – especially as an entrepreneur. I’m a big proponent of mentoring – I was always so grateful to anyone who would take the time to talk with me or help me with connections when I first started out.”

For her job as a blogger, Deanna constantly stays abreast of the latest changes in technology and food photography. For students in particular Deanna hopes that strides are being made to keep their training up to date, “I’d love to see dietetic majors and interns being exposed to more than the traditional career plan options. Embracing new technology, diet trends, what the younger generation’s interests are is vital to staying on the cutting edge.”

Deanna comes from a family of talented culinary professionals, “My mom and both my grandmothers were great cooks. From my Italian side, I learned that cooking for others can be a symbol of love and sharing cultural traditions. From my dad’s side, I learned to be practical with food and never take for granted that you have food to eat.”

As a former chair of the Food & Culinary Professionals dietetic practice group, Deanna certainly had difficult choosing only one food as her ultimate pick, “Top of the list are shrimp, pasta, broccoli rabe, pizza, avocados, peanut butter, bananas, and cheese. Probably because I’m a dietitian, people are sometimes shocked that I don’t like cauliflower or quinoa. Or green smoothies – #bleck. Some might also be surprised that I love McDonald’s french fries.”

In her free time Deanna enjoys reading, cooking, watching Netflix, traveling, spending time with family & friends, or sitting on a beach anywhere. As a food lover Deanna would love to see some of the negativity surrounding food disappear, “There’s a lot of food bashing these days like “milk causes cancer” or “Fruit is bad because it’s high in sugar” <—say what? I love for people to not think of food in terms of healthy or bad for you vs. wholesome and delicious.”